Asch’s Research

• What is Asch’s base line test?

  • Showed participants 2 large white cards at a time. On one card there was a ‘standard line’, on the other card there were 3 ‘comparison lines’.
  • Participants were asked to say which comparison line matched the standard line.
• What were the Results of the test?

  • 36.8% of the responses by true part were incorrect.
  • With no confederates, only 1% of people made mistakes
• What does Distortion of Perception mean?

  A small number of participants came to see the lines in the same way as the majority.
• What does Distortion of Judgement mean?

  They were doubtful/unsure of their own judgement.
• What does Distortion of Action mean?

  Most participants continued to privately think differently from the group, but changed their public answer to avoid disapproval.
• What are the 3 explanations for the participants conforming?

  • Distortion of perception - ISI
  • Distortion of judgement - ISI
  • distortion of action - NSI
• Variation 1 - Task Difficulty

  • Asch made the line lengths closer together and therefore the task harder.
  • He found conformity to the majority increased.
• Variation 2 - Size of the Majority

  • There was little conformity when the majority was only one or two people.
  • However, under the pressure of a majority of 3 conformity increased to 30%.
  • But further increases did not increase the levels of conformity. Size of majority is important until an optimal point.
• Variation 3 - Unanimity of the Majority

  • Originally all the confederates gave the same wrong answer. So Asch instructed 1 confederate to give the right answer. Conformity dropped considerably. He concluded that breaking the group’s consensus was one of the main influences in conformity.
• Strengths of Asch’s research

  • Simple test
• Limitations of Asch’s Research

  • groups did not resemble groups in everyday life
  • only used white American men
  • US is an individualist culture